I’ve been taking a lot of dumps recently, and making all sorts of metaphysical discoveries.
Here’s a pet theory I’ve been working on, which was inspired by a National Geographic/Discovery Channel special on the role of First-borns in history. The Special talked about how, historically, first-born children tend to represent established governments, while second-borns and middle children tend to start revolutions. According to the show, history is literally peppered with instances of second-borns overthrowing first-borns.
I thought that that was a rather amazing little discovery and while musing about it (taking a dump of course), I came upon my own little theory about roles and birth orders.
The first theory goes like this:
First-borns tend to hang out together, and middle children tend to hang out together. Pick a group of people that you know always hang out and you’ll notice that they are (generally) of similar birth-orders. In our little circle, the first-borns are myself, mike, sonofAngron, carlocake and muffin. That’s about 5 out of 7.
The second theory goes like this:
Second-borns/middle children are usually the ones that try to be different in some way. It might be something big, like an artist in a family of physicians, or it might be something really small, like always trying to correct your older brother/sister. I realize that this will probably sound insulting to second-borns, but I think that being second-born means that you are constantly compared with the older sibling. This has two effects: (1) it makes you want to look for a niche that the elder sibling is not interested in occupying and (2) it makes you want to put the elder sibling down as much as possible, because it in turn, lifts you up.
I am close to 3 middle children, and I notice that one thing they have in common is this need to prove themselves. I know it’s not a trait unique to their personality because they are all very different people; they just happen to share this one peculiarity that they constantly have to remind you that, yes, they can do this too, or yes, they know that too. I’m quite sure they do it unconsciously; it’s not a social-climbing thing and it’s not an insecurity thing. It’s just how they talk, I suppose.
The third theory:
(This one is slightly more specific, but I thought I’d share it with you anyway)
Girls who have geeks as elder brothers tend to be strong/dominant either emotionally or physically. This is like the first effect (1) of being compared to your elder sibling which I talked about above, the one about occupying a niche of your own. I guess it doesn’t really matter if the younger sibling is a girl or a boy, but the result seems so much more obvious when it’s a girl.
Important Note:
Neither of the first two theories work when a group is of mixed genders, because a totally different type of physics is in effect. I don’t have a mixed-gender theory yet, but I will soon, don’t worry. Also, the theory seems to be fucked when the gap between a first- and second-born is very large. Obviously I need a larger sample group to really make any wide generalizations, but the theory does seem to have potential :)